Scientifically Accurate Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

HEY, what a second, we’re astronomers! None if this “how I wonder” stuff about facts established 100 years ago for OUR little prodigy.

Inspired by a Girl Scout poster we saw in Oakland with insipid, inaccurate doggerel, Julia Kregenow and I wanted a better version. Here is Julia’s updated version (with some contributions from me). We had these mostly done back in 2012 (long before that Weinersmith guy put his out…) with some updates in July 2015.

Scientifically Accurate Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
I know exactly what you are

Opaque ball of hot dense gas
Million times our planet’s mass
Looking small because you’re far
I know exactly what you are

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3 thoughts on “Scientifically Accurate Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”

Thanks for that! I love hearing peoples’ variations. “know exactly what you are” is mostly designed to contrast with the original version’s celebration of our ignorance. We *do* have an excellent understanding of stars (and as a stellar astrophysicist I certainly appreciate how much more we have to learn!)

We did wonder if we should get “plasma” in there somewhere, but we decided that since for most stars the ideal gas law is an excellent approximation for most of their mass, “hot dense gas” was the best compromise among the scansion, rhyme, and precision. That is, the Sun *is* made out of gas—an ionized one, for the most part, but still a gas (They Might Be Giants overcorrected with “The Sun is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma”).

I have a similar view to the previous comment by Stephen Thompson:
So when I sing this to my daughter I change the line ‘I know exactly what you are’ to ‘We have studied what you are’. And I use ‘Opaque ball of plasma (and gas)’ in the first verse. Eight verses memorised so far!

P.S. I do wonder if the ‘historic record’ that Stephen has found may be a little behind the times ;-)

Interesting, but presumptuous. The scientific facts we think we have often turn out to need some revision. Science cannot tell us about origins. Only the historical record can do that. And it has never been refuted. The origin of all creation was 6000 years ago.

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